Dogs Among Latest Victims of Tar Sands Poison

One day last February, a man opened the front door of his cabin in Alberta, Canada, to find his dog looking quite ill. Seeing that two of his other dogs were missing, he headed out to track them down. Sadly, less than a mile from his home he found his dogs dead next to a mound of snow. Nearby was a dead wolf.

Sadly, our addiction to oil here in the United States makes us complicit in this tragedy. Oil and gas development in Alberta has transformed portions of a once lush landscape into an industrial wasteland. The resulting habitat loss is pushing several woodland caribou herds to the brink of extinction.To mitigate the caribou loss, wildlife officials have been slaughtering the wolves that prey on caribou, instead of protecting caribou habitat. They’ve poisoned hundreds of innocent wolves with deadly strychnine-laced bait and have fatally shot others from helicopters!

War on Wildlife

Dogs, wolves, raptors, cougars, and the eagles that feed on the poisoned carcasses are the victims of this war on wildlife. What’s worse, to accommodate the further development of Alberta’s tar sands, Canadian officials plan to expand their poisoning and aerial shooting program.

Today, big oil companies are determined to build more pipelines in the United States so they can expand their dirty and lethal oil mining operations. Keystone XL, the largest proposed pipeline, would be disastrous if approved. It would carry dirty and dangerous tar sands oil across our nation’s heartland, would further destroy caribou habitat in Alberta, and would put wildlife along the pipeline route in serious jeopardy.

Your support today will help National Wildlife Federation continue to fight tar sands development, advocate for safer pipeline practices, mobilize our passionate supporters, and stop dangerous threats like Keystone XL once and for all.